In Reference to You
by magfreak
Summary: A peek into newlywed life for Tom and Sybil. One-shot based on an anon prompt.


_Here's a one-shot based on this anon prompt:_ I'd really like to see something light and fluffy based around Tom and Sybil first living together in Dublin after they got married. Neither has lived with anyone else like that before and both have lived in very different environments, and as much as they love each other, both will do things that annoy the other. How would they cope?

_If you follow me on tumblr (tumblr dot magfreak dot com), then you've seen this one already. It's not a story so much as an extended headcanon. This isn't necessarily exactly how I envision that first week for them, just one variation. Sybil and Tom exist in all universes for me, and each universe has its unique elements. Anyway, I didn't love this as I was writing it, though there are elements that I did like bringing to life. I hope you enjoy it either way! Cheers!_

* * *

"I don't think I'll ever tire of it, no matter how long we've been married," Sybil said to Tom with a happy sigh after an early morning round of lovemaking a mere eight days into their brand-new marriage. Tom could only laugh in response.

Both were lying on their backs looking up at the ceiling of their small Dublin flat, a bit out of breath. Their desire for each other had only increased now that it existed inside the acceptable bounds of marriage. But as exciting and fun and loving and wild as their very brief honeymoon had been (a week spent at a small beachside inn in Portmarnock, paid for by Mary and Edith, who would not take no for an answer), the realities of the world and their new life together—namely that they had to work for their living—had asserted themselves onto their precious cocoon of happiness upon their return to Dublin a few days before. They would both claim they would make love forever if they could, but alas, ecstasy did not pay the rent.

Tom turned on his side and pulled at Sybil's waist, so that her back was now against his chest. She welcomed the warmth of his embrace. "Another go?" She asked, as she felt his wandering hands tickling the underside of her breasts.

"I don't know about you, _I_ am meant to go to work this morning," Tom murmured into her ear. "Though how I am supposed to concentrate after a week away, knowing my wife is home and with images of her floating around in my head is a mystery."

Sybil laughed. "Well, get going, then!"

Tom shifted so he was over her and gave her one more long hard kiss, which she returned eagerly, before pulling himself up quickly and standing to pull his clothes for the day from the wardrobe.

Sybil pulled the sheet that he'd been tangled in into herself and rolled over, smiling as she watched him. "I won't be completely without task today," she said. "I have to go to the college to register for my course."

Having run into a number of firmly closed doors in her search for a nursing job, Sybil took one forgiving interviewer's advice to receive additional training. Few Irish hospitals, after all, were going to take a chance on an English aristocrat with only two-months of formal schooling, no matter how good her wartime experience had been. After careful consideration and some encouragement from Tom, she used some of the "gift" her father had given them to pay for a course in midwifery at one of the local colleges. Tom was glad to put the money to use for something that would help Sybil specifically. The less beholden he ever felt to Robert Crawley, the better.

"And when will you be finished with that?" Tom asked as he sorted through his clothes and picked out what he'd wear, for the moment not bothering to cover his still naked self up in any way.

Sybil had noticed in the few days they had been living together in the flat as husband and wife that Tom had rather a penchant for walking around in the nude when they were alone. She didn't mind, of course, and enjoyed seeing him so uninhibited and unencumbered—so fully _himself_. He teasingly suggested she could do the same, but a lifetime of English scruples couldn't be done away with in one week, so Sybil kept the sheet wrapped around herself as she finally pushed herself off the bed and moved her feet to the floor to stand.

Tom looked over to her and smiled knowingly. He walked over to the door that separated their bedroom from the small adjoining washroom and plucked her dressing gown off the hook on the back of the door and brought it over to her.

"About three o'clock, I think," she answered finally.

Tom bit his lip. "Let's meet at the pub for dinner, then," he said as casually as he could, walking toward the washroom for what he knew would be a very cold bath. He took a peek back at Sybil as she slipped the dressing gown with a grace she didn't seem to know she possessed, and he laughed at himself. The cold water would do him good.

After tying off the gown, Sybil followed Tom and leaned against the door as he began to fill the basin.

"Are you avoiding my cooking?" she asked with a raise of her eyebrow. "You've barely let me make tea since we've been back."

"Can't a husband suggest an outing with his wife?" he asked innocently.

"Not if the wife suggests she wants to make him a home-cooked meal," Sybil said airily.

"Love, we don't have any food."

"Do you think me incapable of going to the market on my own as well?" Sybil said crossing her arms. "Tom you can't accompany me everywhere forever. If I'm going to live in Dublin, I have to _live in Dublin_. Your own mother agrees with me on that score, and you well know there's precious little she and I see eye to eye on."

Tom did not say aloud what he believed to be true: that Aileen and Sybil were equally stubborn and therefore equally unlikely to ever be compelled to admit how much they had in common—particularly when it came to what irritated them both about him. Looking back at Sybil now, an expression that mixed eagerness to please with defiance and _Don't tell me I can't!_ on her face, his shoulders drooped. "All right, I'm sorry. I'd love to have dinner here at the flat. We can do it together, if you wait until I return home."

Sybil smiled and walked over to give him a kiss. "Home—I do like it when you say that word in reference to this place."

Tom pulled her into a full hug. "I say it in reference to you."

Sybil blushed and gave him another kiss before leaving him so he could get ready.

After Tom had washed and dressed, they enjoyed a breakfast of scrambled eggs and coffee—the latter something Sybil had mastered in her time living with her mother-in-law and the former a long-ago lesson from her American grandmother. It wasn't much of a meal, but it gave Sybil hope that she wouldn't be completely useless in the kitchen. When he left, dressed in his humble but handsome suit, off to do the job he'd dreamed of for so long, Sybil felt terribly proud. So proud and happy, in fact, that she felt like she might burst into tears. She pushed him out the door quickly before the emotion got the better of her, but when the door closed behind her—and the sound of his footsteps down the stairs faded into the general din of the life on the street coming from the open windows—she missed him immediately.

Walking back into their bedroom, she looked at the bedside clock.

It was not quite 8:15 in the morning.

_A bit late for him to be off—we'll have to do better with our morning routine_, she thought.

Then, _So what am I meant to do now?_

Being alone was not something Sybil had prepared for before they were married. Obviously, both she and Tom longed to do as they pleased and to be husband and wife. But having lived for so long surrounded by dozens of people, she took for granted what exactly it would mean to be by herself for stretches of the day on end and to be the master of her schedule, rather than at the mercy of Carson, her parents, the "rules of propriety" or even—for this last month and a half—Tom's mother. Eventually, she would have her course and a job to keep her busy, but even while temporary, the solitude was unlike anything she had been used to before. Unlike Sybil, Tom had enjoyed a measure of it in the chauffeur's cottage, but one was hardly ever alone at Downton Abbey, especially the servants, and his time there certainly had never been his own.

Sybil looked around the room and saw on the floor traces of what Tom had been wearing the night before. She rolled her eyes and thought of his mother again.

_A grand time you'll have picking up after him_.

As she picked up trousers, shirt, waistcoat, socks, suit jacket and underwear—all haphazardly thrown here and there in the wake of the wave of passion that had hit them as they readied for bed and left there by him even though _her_ clothes had managed to find the laundry basket—she considered how orderly and clean the garage at Downton had always been. Because when it came to his _work_, there was no doubting Tom's tidiness, discipline and attention to detail. Such traits were part of what had made him a good servant, and Sybil knew they would serve him well in his new profession too. His personal effects, however, were not so well looked after. A form of rebellion resulting from a long childhood under his mother's exacting thumb.

And even this early in their cohabitation, Sybil struggled to let the mess be.

On the one hand, it was an amusing sign of their independence and life choices—about which they were both very proud. No one would accuse them of employing maids, certainly. But the nurse in Sybil, the one who'd come to treasure the sight of crisp sheets on a well-made bed, couldn't help but be exasperated.

Once she'd finished picking up and making the bed, Sybil washed up and dressed for the day. She went to the market, being careful to stay within the budget they'd set for themselves. After returning home, she baked a cake for after dinner and set it on the ledge of the kitchen window with a cloth over it. Then, she went to the baker down the street for a bun and had it with tea over a book in the flat's small parlor before setting out again, this time to the college. Later that afternoon, her errands complete, she returned home, her spirits buoyant and full of hope about her new life.

When Tom returned home from work in the early evening, he first followed the smell of burnt ham into the kitchen. Then, after seeing the charred remains atop the stove, he followed the sounds of Sybil sobbing to the bathroom, where she'd locked herself.

"Love?" He said gently at the door.

"Please go away!"

"Sybil—"

"I don't want you to see me like this," she said, amid her still audible sobs.

Tom threw his head back in a sigh. "I'm not seeing you am I?"

"Oh, you think this is funny?"

"No, love, I don't think burning what I am sure was an expensive cut of ham is all that funny. I wish you'd—"

Before Tom could go on, the swoosh of the door opening in front of him, revealing a now not so much sad as angry Sybil in front of him, caught him off guard. "You wish I'd what? Sit here and twiddle my thumbs all day and do nothing until you are back to rescue me from myself?"

When she'd finished, Sybil walked past him and out of the room.

"I wish you'd have waited for me like I asked!" Tom answered, suddenly feeling a bit irritated himself. "I realize that you want to be able to do things on your own, but we can't exactly afford you learning housekeeping on a basis of trial and error!"

Tom walked into the kitchen, where Sybil was standing in front of the charred ham, hands over her face, apparently weeping again. "You're right. I've made a fool of myself and been uselessly wasteful," she mumbled behind her hands.

Tom snuck up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, happy when she didn't immediately push him away.

"I just wish I could do one thing right, as a wife," Sybil said, moving her hands over his.

"Well . . . you _do_."

Sybil turned her head and looked at him from the side of her eyes. "Very funny," she said sarcastically, stepping away from him but unable to stop the laughter, which became even harder when he laughed as well. After wiping the last of her tears, she looked up at him again and smiled at the way he was smiling at her, so full of love.

And desire.

She practically leapt into his arms, and he happily caught her. The table was too covered with the remnants of her attempts at cooking, so they settled for the floor beneath. It was quick. The scramble to push clothing aside amid laughter and kisses and promises about patience and careful budgeting was half the fun.

About an hour later, they ate the cake for dinner, straight from the baking pan, sitting naked on the floor beneath the open kitchen window.


End file.
